4 ms·
> "The platform is almost completely open!" That's kind of the problem. You can do anything, and plenty of people are. But there's no platform 'boss' to lay d
by roc 14y ago
> "The platform is almost completely open!"
That's kind of the problem. You can do anything, and plenty of people are. But there's no platform 'boss' to lay down standards.
Aside from (fleeting) de-facto standards (particular flight sticks in years past; the 360 gamepad today) input support on the PC is a pain point for devs. Shoddy drivers, shoddy APIs, shoddy manufacturer support -- to say nothing of the state of vision, voice and touch.
There's a reason PC games are treading water with support for little-to-nothing beyond kb/m and dodgy/partial support for the 360 gamepad here and there.
- phaus 14y agoThe keyboard / mouse combo is the ideal way to control many types of games. Edit: I was addressing this comment, not claiming that the keyboard is superior in all situations. >There's a reason PC games are treading water with support for little-to-nothing beyond kb/m and dodgy/partial support for the 360 gamepad here and there.
- untog 14y agoSure. But it doesn't fit the living room environment very well. You can dispute whether that's where the PC is headed, but it's what Valve thinks, so their logic is at least consistent.
- dageshi 14y agoNot if you're sitting on a couch it isn't.
- archagon 14y agoYes, and not so great for others. Have you tried playing Batman: Arkham Asylum with a mouse/keyboard? Those combos are so much harder to pull off! What about 3D platformers, where analog movement is paramount? Racing games, where analog steering and acceleration really help? Nowadays, I find that I use my PC gamepad as often as my mouse/keyboard.
- mitchty 14y agoRacing games are the perfect example of mouse/keyboard failure. As well as flight simulators or simulations of any sort mostly. It is OK for most games, but not ideal.
- phaus 14y agoAs I stated above, I agree that analog controllers are better than a M/K for racing games. As for flight simulators, I guess it depends on what you mean by a flight sim. Old school flight sims are where I got my start in gaming, back in the early to mid 90s when they at least tried to seem realistic. Lately, it seems that most "flight sims" are arcade shooters with historically accurate aircraft models. If you are playing an arcade game, the console controllers are superior; if you are playing an actual flight sim, console controllers and the mouse / keyboard combo are absolutely terrible, with the mouse/keyboard getting a slight edge due to the impossibility of implementing that many commands on a console controller.
- checker 14y agoHopefully a direct thought/muscle tension interpreter will become feasible and eliminate the need for this argument. It would also eliminate common cases of RSI.
- phaus 14y agoI agree that it's not so great for others, but I never claimed it was ideal for ALL genres. If implemented correctly, a M/K control scheme can be just as good if not better than an analog controller for a 3d platform game. I played both Tomb Raider and Super Mario 64 all the way through when they were released (which was around the same time), but neither control scheme seemed to have an obvious advantage. More recently, I played some of the Assassin's Creed games on the PC, and the control was pretty much perfect. When the first one came out, I remember some reviewers were surprised to find that they liked the PC version's controls more than the console version's. For racing games, I agree, the analog controller is superior. It's also superior for fighting games and sports games.
- roc 14y ago1. I never said keyboard/mouse was bad. I said no-one's branching out, despite the open platform, because the lack of standards and support makes that painful. 2. You may want to keep survivorship bias in mind. (If you had a game that kb/m wasn't ideal for, would you even bother releasing it on the PC?)